America needs a Big Bad Scary-Looking Enemy, as a justification for astronomical military and security budgets, to provide a pretext for the destruction of civil liberties, and to forestall calls for reform.
"Sure, education, healthcare and infrastructure would be great, but don't you know, there's a war on? We gotta fight Saddam/Milosevic/Noriega/Putin/Saddam again/Xi/Whatever!"
Nice write up, Mr. Cardin. It's good to see some discussion of alternatives to our current behavior. That said, I think you have some opportunities for improvement here. I'm going to borrow some of the concepts from the late, great, humorist, Sir Terry Prachett. He spent a chunk of one of his diskworld novels exploring some related but actually different concepts. For example, as he pointed out being sober isn't the opposite of being drunk, it's the absence of being drunk. He defines the opposite of being drunk as a hyper realistic state that he called knurled. He then goes on to have fun with that word.
Which brings us to.... isolationism which is defined (in the dictionary) as an unwillingness to engage with the world is the opposite of interventionism. An actual isolationist wouldn't, for example, be a member of the UN, agree to a trade treaty, or sign on to a treaty on the law of the seas. The only isolationist that I can think of is North Korea. Interventionism which is the opposite of isolationism is problematic since any nation can be an interventionist, all you need to to be powerful enough to beat up anybody who would have the temerity to object to your intervening. There's another name for this - it's called the law of the jungle. The UN was supposed to put a stop to that but since the US was the first and the biggest and baddest interventionist who views rules as quaint things that only little countries follow.
Then you have the Chinese or the spirit of "nonconflict, nonconfrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation." As I believe Zhou En Lai put it. That, I think, is the opposite of isolationism and interventionism. We might want to give it a shot.
Lies. lies everywhere - from both DNC and GOP oligarchs. One of the most blatant and dangerous is the spreading of hatred of Russia !!
Russia ceased being Communist more than 30 years ago. But Hillary/Obama/Biden invented the scam of the century - Russia-gate hoax --- the stupid and dangerous new Cold War - on behalf of bloated "security and defense" apparatus and DNC arms industry donors.
Next step is triggering Ukraine-Russia war to prevent gas pipeline to Germany. And China conducts -- a "genocide" while Gaza is an open concentration camp for decades and torture of a publisher of the century and leading free speech advocate continues....
At UN, Aaron Maté debunks OPCW’s Syria lies and confronts US, UK on cover-up - YouTube
Lies and crimes against humanity -- where is anti-War movement?
- The US worsened the suffering of Syrians by backing Jihadist terrorists against them, burning their wheat fields and looting their oil and gas. Now the US wants to “help” the Syrians by suffocating them with brutal sanctions!
- Queues all over Syria for bread and fuel after the US and NATO looted Syria’s oil and burned its wheat. The US is a sadistic regime that thrives on the misery of nations. Syria was once a self-sufficient country. Before America decided (remember 17 years ago !!) that secular socialist Syria needs “democracy and freedom”.
America needs a Big Bad Scary-Looking Enemy, as a justification for astronomical military and security budgets, to provide a pretext for the destruction of civil liberties, and to forestall calls for reform.
"Sure, education, healthcare and infrastructure would be great, but don't you know, there's a war on? We gotta fight Saddam/Milosevic/Noriega/Putin/Saddam again/Xi/Whatever!"
Nice write up, Mr. Cardin. It's good to see some discussion of alternatives to our current behavior. That said, I think you have some opportunities for improvement here. I'm going to borrow some of the concepts from the late, great, humorist, Sir Terry Prachett. He spent a chunk of one of his diskworld novels exploring some related but actually different concepts. For example, as he pointed out being sober isn't the opposite of being drunk, it's the absence of being drunk. He defines the opposite of being drunk as a hyper realistic state that he called knurled. He then goes on to have fun with that word.
Which brings us to.... isolationism which is defined (in the dictionary) as an unwillingness to engage with the world is the opposite of interventionism. An actual isolationist wouldn't, for example, be a member of the UN, agree to a trade treaty, or sign on to a treaty on the law of the seas. The only isolationist that I can think of is North Korea. Interventionism which is the opposite of isolationism is problematic since any nation can be an interventionist, all you need to to be powerful enough to beat up anybody who would have the temerity to object to your intervening. There's another name for this - it's called the law of the jungle. The UN was supposed to put a stop to that but since the US was the first and the biggest and baddest interventionist who views rules as quaint things that only little countries follow.
Then you have the Chinese or the spirit of "nonconflict, nonconfrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation." As I believe Zhou En Lai put it. That, I think, is the opposite of isolationism and interventionism. We might want to give it a shot.
Lies. lies everywhere - from both DNC and GOP oligarchs. One of the most blatant and dangerous is the spreading of hatred of Russia !!
Russia ceased being Communist more than 30 years ago. But Hillary/Obama/Biden invented the scam of the century - Russia-gate hoax --- the stupid and dangerous new Cold War - on behalf of bloated "security and defense" apparatus and DNC arms industry donors.
Next step is triggering Ukraine-Russia war to prevent gas pipeline to Germany. And China conducts -- a "genocide" while Gaza is an open concentration camp for decades and torture of a publisher of the century and leading free speech advocate continues....
Biden administration is a War government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge4W9e6YeXQ
At UN, Aaron Maté debunks OPCW’s Syria lies and confronts US, UK on cover-up - YouTube
Lies and crimes against humanity -- where is anti-War movement?
- The US worsened the suffering of Syrians by backing Jihadist terrorists against them, burning their wheat fields and looting their oil and gas. Now the US wants to “help” the Syrians by suffocating them with brutal sanctions!
- Queues all over Syria for bread and fuel after the US and NATO looted Syria’s oil and burned its wheat. The US is a sadistic regime that thrives on the misery of nations. Syria was once a self-sufficient country. Before America decided (remember 17 years ago !!) that secular socialist Syria needs “democracy and freedom”.